It’s Lionel Messi’s 30th birthday, so here’s my favorite performance by him

The Obelisco de Buenos Aires was inaugurated on May 23, 1936 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Buenos Aires. It was built in less than four weeks and stands at 235 feet, in the Square of the Republic, where the church of San Nicolas de Bari once was. Argentina’s greatest monument was 24 years old when Diego Maradona was born in Lanús, just south of the capital city. Maradona’s birth took the usual 9 months and when he matured, he stood at only 5’5 feet tall.

On January 6, 2009, Maradona sat in the stands of the famed Vicente Calderon, among 54,850 others. He was there to watch Atlético Madrid play Pep Guardiola’s Barcelona in the first leg of their round of 16 Copa Del Rey tie. As the new manager of the Albicelestes, he was there to observe the 21 year old Lionel Messi. Though Maradona was shorter than the Obelisk, Messi, and the average Spanish man who sat beside him, his shadow engulfed the entire arena.

It was in this same darkness of Maradona that Diego Latorre moved from Boca Juniors to Fiorentina and then into irrelevancy. Where Ariel Ortega lost his temper and headbutted Edwin van der Sar before trying to find solace in alcohol. Where Marcelo Gallardo went to France and then back home, then to France again, and to the United States before returning home for the final time. Juan Roman Riquelme, Pablo Aimar, Javier Saviola, Carlos Marinelli, Andres D’Alessandro, Carlos Tevez had all been made small by the shadow of Argentina’s greatest monument.

Messi’s first goal that day was a goal like many others to come in his career. Dani Alves brought the ball up the right side of the field before rolling it to Messi who was by the touchline. Alves then moved to the inside of the field, staying higher than the two defenders who were now focused on the Argentine. Messi took a few steps forward with the ball and the defenders engaged. Then he passed it to Alves and sprinted behind his markers. Alves, always one for the spectacular, back-heeled the pass through and it found Messi one-on-one with the French goalkeeper Gregory Coupet. An easy side-foot finish saw the keeper look back in agony as Barcelona took the lead.

He would score two more. But with Messi, what doesn’t happen is as just impressive as the ones that end up in the stat sheets at the end of the game.

When Maradona watched Messi, he must have felt as if he was seeing himself reincarnated. There had been numerous new Maradonas before, but Messi resembled Diego more than any other: the floppy hair, the left-foot, the mazy dribbling, riding challenges, the sometimes absurd vision, and the high level of genius that made the extraordinary look absolutely routine. Yet, he couldn’t have been more different.

Maradona scored 38 goals in 58 caps in his time at Barcelona. At 24 years old, he was already in the argument for best player of all time. Yet, his time in Spain is regarded as a failure, not just in the professional sense but as the man himself admits, it was the beginning of a lifelong battle that would harm his legacy: “I was 24 when I started doing drugs. I was at Barcelona. It’s the biggest mistake I’ve ever made.”

On the field, the lasting image of Diego’s difficult time in Spain wasn’t one of his spectacular goals but rather something that showed one of the greatest differences between him and Messi.

In September 1983, as Diego went to control a ball in what seemed to be an easy victory against Athletic Club, Andoni Goikoetxea, known as the “Butcher of Bilbao” slid in from behind the forward with a terrible tackle that saw his ankle bent into a V-shape. Diego was carted off and diagnosed with a broken ankle. He was out for three months and Athletic won the league, just one point ahead of Barcelona.

The next time the two teams met, in the Copa Del Rey final, Diego got his revenge. Continuously hacked down again and bullied, he lost his temper. He pushed Athletic’s goalkeeper to the ground and as the shot stopper turned around while on one knee, Diego ran to him and kneed him in the face. Then he kicked Andoni, and everyone else who came after him. Never once backing down.

Atlético Madrid fouled Messi repeatedly in that 2009 match. As they had done previously and continue to do to this day. Not as a consequence of mistimed tackles, but as a general cynical tactic. In one instance he received a pass, and as he went to control it, a defender purposely ran into his standing knee. When he fell over and the ball went out to Alves, a second defender scythed the Brazilian down — after the original foul had been called.

Messi never once reacted to the provocations. At the most he asked the referee to card the one who had brought him down, but he never engaged with the individual. They took him down, and he came right up to continue on. Where Diego had the attitude of a street kid who never backed down, as Ortega, Tevez and Riquelme did, Messi seemed almost above those reactions. He was better than the ones who came for him, and he treated their dirty tactics as it was: a last resort for them to stop him. It was the same attitude that allowed him to not only survive but to thrive within the Obelisk of El Pibe de Oro.

When he was subbed out towards the end of the match, Messi received a standing ovation for his performance. Maradona stood and clapped as loud and as cheerfully everybody else.

Before he was appointed manager of the national team, Maradona had gone to see Messi in the Beijing Olympics. At the end of it, he said:

“I have seen the player who will inherit my place in Argentine football and his name is Messi. Messi is a genius and he can become an even better player. His potential is limitless and I think he’s got everything it takes to become Argentina’s greatest player.”

Six days after this match against Atléti, Messi won the Ballon d’Or over by a record 240 point margin — 473 to Cristiano Ronaldo’s 233. And since Omar Sívori had become a naturalized Italian when he won his in 1961, Messi became the first Argentine to ever win the award. He would go on to win it four more times.